The Jonah Card and the Faro Flush (see below) are great poker deals. However, I am sure there are many more out there. For example, I remember hearing good things about Steve Mayhew's "Angels May Shuffle But the Devil Still Deals", but have never seen it performed. So, can others give their praises to any poker deals?

Bye for now

Harold

Faro Flush is my name for the following. Royal Flush on top of the deck. Riffle shuffle keeping the five cards on top. Now by doing two faro shuffles (only needs to be perfect for the very top of the deck), you can control the flush to anyone of four positions.

I second Matt's recommendation of the Lorayne Poker Deal (from Close-Up Card Magic and a revised version from the recent Harry Lorayne edition of Genii).

If you can take a borrowed deck and cull the 10-J-Q-K of Spades while openly removing the Aces, then do Lorayne's Poker Deal... well, let's just say that trick alone is worth learning the multiple spread cull for.

It is my one of my favorite effects to do when handed a deck. Because they are usually not in the best condition to be doing alot of sleights with, Lorayne's routine makes you look like a master with cards and requires very little skill at all.

Come to think about it, some more of the complex poker deals and gambling routines i love are from Darwin Ortiz. Darwin Ortiz At The Card Table is one of my favorites and out of the "Card Table Artiface" section you will find many entertaining and fun to do routines such as Fast Shuffle and Greek Poker.

Roberto Giobbi has an excellent poker deal routine that he published as a separate manuscript called "A Gambler's Dream". It's a full deck stack, but he gives a nice deck switch idea and the routine, in typical Giobbi style, is very well thought out.

Bruce Bernstein has an outstanding poker deal routine called "Psych Out." It is very entertaining and doesn't require any difficult slights or complex stacks. It is based on an improvement of the Jonah card principal. I really like it.

Andrew Wimhurst's new video (The Card Artistry of Andrew Wimhurst) has a lot of great poker deals and other card effects.

He has an amazing bridge deal where the specator shuffles and he ends up with dealing all four suits to four hands IN ORDER.

Also Dave Regal has a very nice 10 second poker deal in Close Up and Personal.

Are there any good triumph poker deals? I was playing with the idea the other day with Hugh Jarse and there is great plot there for the taking if no one has thought of it before. (a game of poker where half the cards are face up and half are face down and the magician always deals themselves a face down royal flush while all the other cards are face up)

I cull out the royal flush the turn it face down on te bottom of the deck then perform a standard triumph shuffle (not disturbing bottom five cards) and then two farrows with the bottom cards facing the audience. This sets it up for four hands of cards with the magician getting the royal flush.

Years ago Persi Diaconis worked out a face up face down shuffle poker deal. It was beyond my skill level (still is) so I worked out a slop shuffle milk build version that I lectured on called SLOP POKER.

I think that the concept of face up/face down poker deal is originaly a Doc Daley idea. In Daley's version the performer's hand ended faces up and the other hands ended faces down.Persi Diaconis deal the performer hand faces down and the other hands faces up.I believe the color change kicker belong to Derek Dingle. Numerous versions are published using strip-out, Zarrow, faros, Tenkai reverse....Thomas

In the series on the 10-Card Deal (and the Jonah card principle) I did in MAGIC a few years ago, I picked Bernstein's "Psych-Out" as one of the outstanding variations. It is very clever -- and I think he sells it for a few bucks. It's a deal!

Nicholas, regarding triumph poker deals, I have to recommend something that struck me as just plain beautiful when I read it. I believe it's from J.K. Hartman, and if so, I don't think he'd mind if I describe it here, since he has Tomes of other stuff.

Here's the idea: Give the deck a good downward bend. (i.e. from a hand-to-hand spring, or a pressure fan) deal out five hands of poker to four spectators, the last hand going to yourself.

Tell the four participants that you will look away, and they are each to look over their hands, decide on one card, and flip it face up in the face down packet. They should then table their hands, obviously the top card should not be their reversed selection. You illustrate with your hand.

Turn around, and allow this to be done.

Pick up the deck. Cut at about center and ask that the first hand be replaced there. Honestly replace the top half, holding no break.

For the next hand, cut to the natural break below the first reversed selection. Have the second hand replaced onto the bottom half, and in the act of replacing the top half, use the Orvette-Kelly bottom replacement to maneuver the first selection to the bottom of the deck.

Repeat for the rest of the hands, using your hand (without a selection, you've righted it following the demo)as the last hand that allows you to steal the fourth selection to the bottom.

So, you're left with four reversed selection at the bottom of the deck. The triumph handling should now be obvious. (i.e. cut the deck, and while openly turning the top half face up for the shuffle, flop the bottom half to the table, reversing it. Shuffle)

You end by showing the four selections as the only reversed cards in the deck, all together in the center.

Ok, so it's not technically a trick "deal". The only dealing occurs at the beginning of the effect. But it fits into a routine so nicely, no one will ever notice.

For instance, you deal a five handed game, giving yourself a royal flush. (perhaps the Marlo-Gardner deal) Follow that with this routine, but keep track of your royal flush during the triumph shuffling. After you reveal the four selections, they become your original Royal flush.

Sorry for the delay in responding. I got distracted going through my magic library looking for the manuscript!

Anyway, I recall Bruce Bernstein said in his latest lecture that he doesn't like to work hard or risk failure when he performs, so he tries to come up with killer routines that are very easy to do that have little to no chance of failure. Well, after you understand the foundation of the routine, PSYCH-OUT is pretty much semi-automatic in execution and if done right, always gets an incredible reaction. While the routine is outstanding, you of course have to add some showmanship in the presentation or else you're just doing a card trick, not a magic miracle.

The PSYCH-OUT! routine comes printed on a small 20 page comb-bound booklet. The booklet contains very clear and concise descriptions, explanations, performance tips, other thoughts, credits and thanks. I wish all routines were this well written up and easy to follow.

Bob Farmer, who probably knows more about the 10 card poker deal and the Jonah card concept than anybody else, says it is a "must have". I agree.

- Oliver

p.s. If you decide to buy PSYCH-OUT, also check out Bruce's most recent lecture notes "Going South with his Secrets". The scam "Pennies from Heaven" is even easier to do than PSYCH-OUT and just as entertaining.